100% CPU usage at 1xSpeed?

Hi everyone, im new here, and have tried everywhere to find an answer to a very annoying problem. I own a "lite-on ltr-401225" which is the 40xCD Burner.

The problem is, whenever i try to play/burn (or for that matter use it at all) a CD in the drive, the drive spins up (at this point, all ok) but then very soon, the cd will spin down, causing the computer to practiacally come to a complete halt, until the cd spins up again, i've tried moving the drive from primary to secondary, master to slave, no difference, i think it is PIO, and DMA isn't available.

I used to have this drive on an older pc, which worked perfectly (and no the burner was not specifically for the drive)

I used nero's cd speed testing program, the results were ridiculous, the Full seek time was over 1500ms, testing it on another drive it came down to 130ms. Worse still was the CPU usage, at 1xSpeed it used 100% cpu, at 2x, 94% and so on down to 8x at 54% cpu.

Many people have suggested bios updates (not that confident in that theory, plus i cant find one) Or perhaps the PSU isn't delivering enough power, but i've removed all but the HDD and the burner.... no difference.

Anyone out there have ANY idea why my CD-Burner is haunted ??

Any help at all is greatly appreciated!!!

Personally try it in another machine if possible if the same results then I'd say its time for the credit card to come out and the drive to be sent to the dump, if it works ok then its a hardware/software conflict on your system.

it sounds like your drive isn't operating in DMA mode. in device manager, uninstall the IDE channel that the drive is installed on and reboot. this should put the drive back into DMA mode.

If you don't know how to uninstall your drive or don't want to then you can try to just turn it back on. See the website nutton below this on a guide for 9x or Xp to turn it back on.

thanks guys, well it wasn't in DMA mode, but unfortunately it only made amrginal differences, i think the best bet may be to chuck it into another computer and if it's buggered there, then hello mr. credit card. I have tried a DVD rom in the pc as well, with close to the same results, large seek times, high CPU usage at low speeds.... something very strange going on.....

Have you tried the latest drivers and firmware for your mobo?
What is your mobo? make/model?
As two drives acting like this sounds like a crap or faulty mobo or have you tried a new ide cable. Also a another thought have you tried mounting the cdrw as primary slave to see if the same results are obtained through this port.
Let us know how you get on.

The burner is actually a LTR 40125s, i've updated the firmware from Lite-on themselves, but no difference. I have tried changing cables, primary, secondary, master slave etc... nothing. I used to own an old p4 1.7, with 256mb ram, and both drives operated properly, but im pretty sure since i got a celeron 2.0 with 512mb, that its started, im not 100% sure, but i wonder if the motherboard would have conflicts with the hardware, seems strange as its all brand new (me hopes!)

Thanks for all your help!